Let Loose That Light - Prologue and Chapter 1

[hiddencait]

Prologue

I was ready for the truth I wasn't ready for the situation
Well maybe in time maybe in time I'll figure this out

“Perfect Day” Matt Hires

There were colored pencils in the Watcher’s hands and her lap and papers scattered about the room, carpeting the floor and taped over the wall, burying the cot in the corner and the tables and chairs. The young woman in the center of the room scribbled away on this sheet and then that, one after another here and there spending only moments on each before moving on again. To the onlookers, only a few of the pages held anything remotely legible. The images were hurried and blurred at the edges, one form blending into another without rhyme or reason beyond what the woman’s beleaguered mind could conceive of for it.

The agent in charge smothered a chuckle at the stunned faces of her new colleagues. They had no idea of what they were getting involved with signing on as part of the team in charge of this Watcher.

She was easily the most promising specimen yet. Only one other Watcher had ever seen so much. It was likely not a coincidence that these two were related.

The Holmes women were certainly a wonder to behold, a proper marvel of psychic genetic heredity at work. It offered a singular example for study on the subject. Rarely did the Division have the chance to observe a psychic parent and child together. Dr. McLauren was raving about his research into the differing evolution of each woman’s individual precognitive gift.

Agent Hollis had to agree with him – it was fascinating watching each of them and how they used their gifts.

The elder Holmes woman saw the distant future, and her detail sometimes waited years to see the moments she spoke of. It was hard to be patient, but generally those pearls of wisdom were worth the time that passed. And it wasn’t like she wasn’t amusing in other ways. Anna Holmes practiced her gifts in a way that was almost stereotypical for a psychic of her subset. She used, and this always amused the new agents on her detail, crystal orbs to ‘scry’ or so she called it. A psychic with a crystal ball. It was more than a little funny.

Or it would be if she didn’t lose the damned things constantly. Anna seemed to forget she carried them half the time and dropped them or set them aside or who knew what else she did with them. It stopped being fun after the first couple people managed to injure themselves by stepping all over them. The overall count was 6 different agents out over time with either sprains or broken bones from slipping and falling on the damned things. It made it a bit more troublesome to be on Anna Holmes’s detail, but the unofficial Division prestige of being connected to a powerful psychic kept new agents applying for the empty slots even knowing it was occasionally accidentally dangerous.

Her daughter’s detail was already drawing the same sort of acclaim. Cassie Holmes hadn’t been captured more than a few months prior, less than a year, but already her visions had led the Division to several hitherto rogue psychics.  It was both harder and easier to gauge the future based on her visions. The younger woman seemed almost exclusively to use her gift moment by moment, as if her visions were all set in the present moment or near future, bare weeks ahead at most. When she spoke of viewing the future like a photograph, it was as if she used a Polaroid and an instant capture of each event. There was no knowing just how much of each image she really saw. Judging from the pictures she drew she might only see individual details each time. Those details though… they might hold a wealth of secrets.

Agent Hollis had seen that first hand time and again… or, she was almost sure she had. She pressed a hand to her forehead, fighting back now far too common headaches. It was a side effect of the serum, or so the science geeks told her. A fair price to play for the massive increase in her gifts. It didn’t make it any more enjoyable to deal with. Nor did the occasional bouts of confusion.

They kept telling her there would be a breakthrough - that they’d be able to ease of the side effects, but it just never seemed to happen. Nor did it seem to help they others they’d given the serum over the years. There were still only a fraction who survived the full process, and they too tended to be hit by the headaches.

Agent Hollis shook off the feeling, and ignored the knowing looks from the Stitch she’d been assigned. She didn’t have time to play his games. No, they had work to do.

She’d noticed in the center of the room that Cassie was slowing down in her frantic scribbling, focusing on a single sheet of paper for more than a few seconds.

That meant she was seeing something clearly. Something that mattered to her. Or someone that mattered to her.  That could mean…

“What do you see, Cassie? Who do you see?” Agent Hollis leaned down, trying to keep her face open and inviting. Cassie didn’t answer, just switched the colors in her hands, adding tiny details to the object she was drawing. Agent Hollis looked over to the other agents and shrugged at their impatience; they’d learn soon enough it wasn’t easy to hurry this Watcher along. She’d lose the vision if they weren’t careful. Agent Hollis sat back on her heels, and waited. She’d only Push the Watcher if she had too, if she didn’t answer or tried to move to another sheet of paper without explaining.

After a long moment of the younger woman choosing one final color and adding her signature in the corner. She still didn’t speak, and Agent Hollis sighed. Plan B it was then.

“Tell me what you see, Cassie,” she said and pushed, her eyes going blind for a moment as she exerted her will over the other woman. Cassie swayed, her eyes narrowing as she glared for a moment, making it clear she knew full well that she was being influenced. Then the ragged blonde shook all over and shrugged, then held the image out to the agent.

“It’s just a lily, Kira. A pendant.” She smiled down at the image she’d drawn, and then spoke so softly the other woman almost didn’t hear her. “He gave me a flower…”

At her words, the agent felt a ripple of excitement and then vicious jealousy sweep over her, but she ruthlessly buried both before they could affect her. There was too much work to do for her to become distracted. She took the picture Cassie had offered and rose, turning to the agents under her command.

“It’s time. He’s coming for her.”

Chapter 1

“Yesterday” has gone,
Future's coming next.
So move, clock's on.

It's a countdown...

“In a Row” – Nothink

Nick checked his watch again and resisted the urge to drum his fingers on the steering wheel, knowing it would only earn him a sharp comment from the Shadow in the passenger seat. And they couldn’t dissolve into an argument again, not now, not when they sat literally right around the corner from the lab where the Holmes woman and one old friend were being held. He settled for picking up the envelope on the console between them and running his fingers silently along the folds, not opening it, though, not yet. Not until 2:58 on the dot. God he hoped Cassie would be ready. That she even could be ready, considering the cocktail Division likely had her on.

“You’re sure she’s seen-”

“The pendant up against a digital clock stopped at 3:00 p.m. exactly. As I told you the last time, and the time before that.” Mitchell Bryce didn’t bother to turn to look at Nick, but the Mover could imagine the annoyance in the Shadow’s dark eyes. He knew that the Shadow had in fact told Nick more than once now, and knew too that Bryce needed to rescue his cousin and so had every bit of a stake in the success of this mission as Nick did. With that in mind, Nick tried again to calm the impatience welling up within him.

He’d have thought the months without word or hint of Cassie’s location would have been worse, but it seemed having her just out of reach was driving him even more crazy.  It was just… they were so close. After nearly 6 months of planning and scraping and doing everything in his power to find her, to get some bead on where the hell Division had taken his lover, they finally were in position to begin the rescue, to fight back and take her back from the bastards who had stolen her from him.

“God, I hope Emily gets here soon,” Nick cringed as the words slipped out, half expecting Bryce to snap. When the expected sarcastic comment didn’t happen, he risked a glance over to see Bryce’s face carefully blank, his hand half-hiding his eyes. After a moment, the dark-haired man sighed and straightened.

“The lovely Ms. Hu will be here.” He tugged as his tie and smoothed down imaginary wrinkles, the only sign that he might be as stressed as Nick was. “She risks losing too much not to arrive on schedule.”

Nick nodded, and scrubbed a hand across his face. He knew all too well Emily and Bryce had lost someone, lost the same someone as a matter of fact. And it was unfortunately likely due to the somebody he’d lost. Cassie’s gifts were always stronger when it came to her friends and family, and there wasn’t much chance that one after another of some of their past contacts were getting snatched up after she was taken was just a coincidence.  Hook Waters had been only one of those scooped up by Division. At least there was a chance to get Hook back, or as much of a chance as getting Cassie back. He was the only one so far who was actually being kept in the same Division lock up as his Watcher friend. He and their original rescue target, Anna Holmes, Cassie’s mother.

She’d been who they were trying to rescue in the first place those 6 months ago when the mission had gone so very wrong. He still wasn’t totally sure what had… He shook his head at himself. He knew exactly what had gone wrong – Ms. Kira Hudson, or Agent Kira Hollis as she seemed to be called lately. They’d thought she was fine after the mess in Hong Kong. She’d rendezvoused with he and Cassie as planned, and for a while the three of them, he, Kira, and Cassie, had done fairly well moving from city to country, laying low and keeping under the Division radar. It had almost been like a family – almost. If not for the sheer bitchyness that was Kira and Cassie alone in a room together for any length of time at all, he might have been perfectly happy, or as happy as a group of psychics on the run could be.

But then… Then Kira started Pushing, and not just marks around them, but Nick himself, and Cassie. Pushing them to do things that just didn’t make sense. Petty things, like Cassie refusing to speak to him for days, or Nick locking Cassie out of their current squat in the middle of a thunderstorm. Nick talked to Kira, Cassie screamed at her, and their various friends when they were allowed took turns trying to explain just how utterly invasive being Pushed really was.

But Kira didn’t stop. Didn’t seem to want to. And as for the rest of her behavior, it was increasingly erratic, until finally she all but walked back into Division hands. For all he’d once promised to keep looking, to always come for her, Nick couldn’t go after her that time. Not this way unfortunately. In any case, Kira’s little stunt had put Cassie in front of a bullet, and Nick’d had his hands full trying to keep the young Watcher from bleeding out before he could find a Stitch to patch her up. By the time Cassie was out of the woods, Kira and the Division Sniffs and Pushers who’d managed to snag her were gone. Back to the U.S. and whatever facility was deemed proper to re-integrate a psychic and possibly an agent who’d been on the outside as long as Kira had.

In any case, Kira’d been M.I.A. for several years, and Nick, he hadn’t missed her as much as he might have expected. He still had Cassie, and in the coming days as they both grew older and somehow wiser, that impractically dressed and ancient-eyed young woman meant far more than Kira ever did. If forced to choose between them, and God knew he really had been forced to choose between them, Cassie came first and would continue to come first, no matter what.

He just hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with that choice right now in the midst of their rescue mission. Word on the street had it that an Agent Hollis was likely part of the team keeping tabs and guard on Cassie and Anna Holmes. If it was the same Hollis that Carver had thought Kira to be, they could be in deep shit. Kira’s presence complicated things even more than the rescue itself. With Carver long dead, she was definitely the strongest Pusher on record, and while he and Cassie had some experience with holding her off, no one else on their team did. And even he and Cassie could only hold her off to a point.

Worse was the fact that Kira might very well have shared the trick Nick had figured out to avoiding Watchers all those years ago in Hong Kong with her superiors. If that happened, this mission would be over almost before it began.

He set the letter back on the console carefully, and then his fingers drifted up to his throat and the pendant he’d taken to wearing under his shirt after Cassie’d been taken. He’d meant to give it to her as both a birthday present and celebratory gift when they’d rescued her mother. That hadn’t happened, obviously. The pendant had come to mean both hope and failure. Just the chance of the former kept him wearing it though, needing that fragile connection with the woman he’d lost.

Nick barely heard a slight snort from the other man in the car and he jerked his hand away from the pendant with an embarrassed cough. Bryce didn’t look over, just smirked knowingly out the window.

Nick ignored him best he could, and checked the clock again. Almost time to open their respective envelopes. Nick was fairly sure he knew his part in the plan already, but there was no knowing for sure until he read the instructions Emily had written. Instructions she should be wiping from her memory as they waited. But she’d said she’d meet them here after that. So where the hell was she?  He shook his head and hoped the other two members of their merry band of idiots were in position. There was no way to check at this point, but if they weren’t… Well that would blow any chance of getting into the facility itself.

He glanced at the clock and started: 2:58 p.m. He all but lunged for the envelope again, and this time Bryce looked anything but smug, leaning in to look at the card himself. His wasn’t set to be opened til 3:43 p.m., and Nick didn’t even want to consider the stress that time period would be causing the Shadow.

Nick pulled out the card and flipped it over to read. “Drive straight to the gates then drive straight through them – 3:00 p.m.” He blinked and raised an eyebrow at his companion. Bryce shrugged, and Nick turned the key in the ignition starting the engine.

The clock changed to 2:59 p.m., and Nick felt his blood begin to pound. They had one minute and if Emily hadn’t shown by then, they’d need to go without her. That would make finding their targets in the facility that much harder to track, but they wouldn’t have a choice.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as the seconds ticked away, finally not caring if it bothered the man beside him. 

10, 9, 8… He flexed his hands and moved one to hover over the gearshift. 3, 2, 1. 3:00 p.m.

Nick slammed the SUV into drive and gunned it, slamming his foot down on the accelerator and the vehicle all but shrieked into motion. He barely slowed at the stop sign at the corner, wheeling the SUV right and sending Bryce almost sliding, his hand on the door and his seatbelt the only things keeping the Shadow securely in his seat.  They roared down the street and toward the facility entrance at the far end. The massive gate at the entrance was visibly shut, and Nick swallowed as he stepped even harder on the accelerator, pushing the SUV to even higher speeds.

As they approached Nick forced himself to let go of the steering wheel with one hand, preparing the Push the shit out of the gate if it didn’t open on its own. At the very last second, he saw the massive pieces of metal begin to slide apart.

“Thank you, Matthew,” he muttered with a grin and slammed his foot on the accelerator again, sending the SUV flying past the gates and the guard station where he just barely saw the agents beginning to panic.

Phase One fucking complete.

Nick continued to drive, wheeling through the large parking lot to a side entrance Matt’s intel told them might be the closest way to reach the Holmes women. He glanced in the rearview mirror to see another pair of SUVs barreling their way in behind him.

“Seems the ladies have arrived on schedule,” Bryce said from beside him, his smirk showing his satisfaction at the turn of events. One of the vehicles followed close behind him, Emily likely at the wheel. The other spun to face the gate almost as soon as it entered and a barrage of fireballs began to fly from the open drivers side window to the guard station. Their favorite little pyrokinetic, Lex, was clearly having the proverbial and literal blast with the distraction role she was playing for their mission. Nick could only hope she’d keep moving fast enough to evade the agents that would soon come storming after her in the absence on any other intruder to follow. She should be fine though, he reminded himself. According to the rumors, Lex had kept herself out of Division hands her entire life using only her pyrokinetic tricks, an impressive set of street smarts, and a kick ass driving ability. Or so he’d heard.  He wished her well silently – she was on her own for a while or at least as long as Bryce could pull off Shadowing all three of them as they entered the building.

Nick came to a screeching halt with Emily right behind him. All three psychics ran from their respective vehicles, engines still on and running. With any luck, they’d stay that way – facilitating the quick getaway they’d need if the mission proved to be a success.

The three of them pounded up the exterior steps to the door, pausing only a moment before the internal lock triggered itself and they entered. Once again, Nick thought a heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the young technopath they’d met only months before Cassie’d been taken. Nick doubted they’d have ever narrowed down Cassie’s location without the Tech’s help, and he was still proving his worth with every damn move they made. It was almost enough to make Nick ignore the younger man’s obvious crush on Nick’s Watcher love. Almost anyway.

The hallway the door led to was clear, but the first passageway off to the left definitely wasn’t. Nick didn’t even have time to Push the agents – Bryce was already moving, breaking into a sequence of viciously efficient martial arts that had the trio of Division goons out cold with what looked to be very little effort. That talent had not been something the Shadow had mentioned. Handy little trick.

Nick couldn’t help the whistle that escaped his lips, but Bryce barely acknowledged it, straightening his jacket almost casually. Behind them, Emily had used the momentary distraction to strip off her gloves, reaching each into the pockets of her jacket to pull out two objects – a cufflink and a pen, previously owned by Hook Waters and Cassie respectively.  With Nick and Bryce guarding her, Emily brought each item up to her face allowing the psychic “scent” to seep into her hands as the Sniff activated her psychometric gifts to the forefront of her mind. She swayed as her gift took her for a moment, and then shook her head to clear it.

“Cassie is down that hall and up 2 flights of stairs. Behind the blast doors in the… fifth room on the left. She seems stationary for now.” Emily turned her head to blink down the hallway just ahead of them. “Hook - he’s that way… but he’s moving. I can’t get a clear fix on his location.”

It didn’t take Nick even a moment to make his decision. “Bryce take Emily with you. Head after Hook. I’ll get the women.”

Bryce didn’t bother to nod, just took Emily by the elbow and set off at a swift jog down the hallway, leaving Nick to set off in the other direction.